


Say a Prayer and Close Your Eyes (It's Just a Little Turbulence)

by piratekelly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, happy fluffy ending for all, like so unrealistic, mentions of Kate/Derek, scene involving a panic attack/flashback, spoilers for all of season 3, unrealistic portrayal of the publishing industry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratekelly/pseuds/piratekelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything in Derek's life has been broken down to before and after.  <i>Before</i> the alpha pack.  <i>Before</i> the kanima.  <i>Before</i> Laura died.  <i>After</i> everything.  </p><p>Derek just wants to stop dreading what could be <i>next</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say a Prayer and Close Your Eyes (It's Just a Little Turbulence)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MomentsOfWeakness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentsOfWeakness/gifts).



> Post season 3, written prior to 3x11. As this is fairly canon compliant in regards to major events, Erica and Boyd remain gone (we could have had it aaallllllllll). Flashbacks are in italics, all regular text is set in the present moment, most of which takes place in Derek's Mom Car. 
> 
> Title taken from Bowling for Soup's song, "Turbulence".
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely Kayci, so any and all remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Written for my bfffff Meagan, who requested I write Sterek based on this Tumblr post: Imagine person A of your OTP wearing nothing but a shirt or jacket of person B’s, which is baggy or oversized on them. Person B comes home to see Person A curled up on the couch asleep like this, and finds it absolutely adorable.
> 
> P.S. Don't post any of my fic to Goodreads.

It’s early morning when Derek checks out of his hotel room. The woman at the front counter offers him a tired smile, a quiet “thank you for staying,” and he nods at her before turning to make his way for the exit. 

If he never sees this place again for the rest of his life, it’ll still be too soon.

He pushes the door open and is met with the welcoming scent of fresh air. It’s crisp, clean in a way it only can be when the day has yet to begin, in those few seconds between night and day. He pulls in a deep breath, cleansing his head of the smells of the hotel room he’s called home for the last week. He steps down from the curb and in to the parking lot, the sound of his boots landing on the ground with each step his only company.

It’s raining, the pavement beneath him dark and glistening with it, and he spares a thought for the suit he’d haphazardly thrown over his shoulder when exiting his room; Lydia had bought it for him when he’d sold his first book and gone on a small tour around California two years ago. She’d be furious if she could see him now, the grey fabric uncovered, darkening incrementally with every drop of rain. He knows it’ll have to be dry cleaned, only to be thrown into a garment bag, left to languish behind Stiles’ old lacrosse gear in the back of their closet until he has to tug it out in six months for another tour. He should care about it more – it was a gift, and an expensive one at that – but he kind of hates it and everything it means.

He opens the back door of the Toyota and throws it on the backseat in a lump. He can’t muster up enough energy to care. It’s been a long week, and he’s ready to sleep in his own bed again. Shutting the door, he walks over to the driver’s side and climbs in. Even after five years he can still feel the difference between this car and the Camaro, the way it sits higher, doesn’t quite have the kick it needs for a quick getaway, but he’d needed more room and the Camaro, while gorgeous, was impractical.

Turning the key in the ignition, Derek relaxes at the gentle vibration coming from the engine, thrumming through the interior and chasing away the tension in his muscles. He sits there, in the silence of a cold December morning, staring out the windshield, and watches the fog gently begin to dissipate, transforming from a steel grey to a more unattractive greyish yellow as the sun begins to rise. He can vaguely make out the shadow of the Starbucks two blocks down, momentarily entertains the idea of getting a black coffee to go, but he’s too anxious. He needed to leave here what feels like days ago, the duration of his time here spent fighting the siren call of home, of pack, of family. Daily phone calls with Stiles hadn’t been enough to sate the need to be back in the woods, tangled in a pile of sheets with the person he loves.

He throws the car in reverse, backs out of his spot, and points the car towards Beacon Hills.

\--

It’s not a long drive from San Francisco to Beacon Hills, barely two hours in traffic like this, but the silence gives Derek a lot of time to look back on the path his life has taken in the last five years.

After losing Laura, fighting first the kanima and then the alpha pack, and another crazy ex-girlfriend, Derek hadn’t had a lot of hope. He’d spent months sitting around the loft, alternating between fixing it up, working himself so hard that he was reduced to a puddle of sweaty limbs on the floor, and not leaving his bed all day, caught in a vicious cycle of feeling too much or nothing at all. 

And then Lydia had shown up.

\--

_Lydia marches her way into the loft on a Thursday the June before their senior year, a look on her face that told him she would show no mercy, and armed with a binder full of… something, Derek isn’t really sure. He hasn’t moved, has hardly blinked to acknowledge that she's even there as he stares listlessly at the wall just past her shoulder and lets her talk. He catches the occasional word – “therapy,” “supernatural,” “pack” – but when he starts to come back to himself, all he sees is how much she’s changed. Her customary four inch heels have been replaced by a pair of plain black flats, jean shorts where a flowing, probably brightly-colored skirt should have been, coupled with a white racerback tank, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. She looks tired and slightly rumpled, the exact opposite of the girl who’d helped them fight a pack of alphas, who had once beaten Peter at his own mind game. This isn’t the Lydia of before, no designer clothes or snarky comebacks. She’s understated now, more reserved, and he’s reminded, in that moment of how much a year can change a person. He’s not the only one having a difficult time healing._

_He sits up, sheets pillowing around his hips, and asks what’s in the binder._

_She stands up, then, smiling softly before tossing it on the bed._

_“It’s how you’re going to get your shit together.”_

\--

That’s how he’d been introduced to Rachel. How Lydia had managed to find a therapist within 100 miles who also knew about werewolves was beyond him, but he swore to himself that from that moment on, he’d never doubt her again.

\--

_The next year is about as fun as anyone might imagine, which is to say, that it is not fun at all._

_The pack continues to meet once a month, and they know they’re welcome at the loft whenever, but there are no threats on the horizon, and thus no need for them to gather every day._

_Rachel pushes him as much as is ethically possible, then maybe pushes a little more when he’s being particularly stubborn. He knows that doing this is right, that he has problems he needs to deal with, but that doesn’t make it easy. They started out fine, spent a session or two getting a feel for each other, trying to find a dynamic that would work best for them._

_He’d gone in to this thinking that talking about his family would be the most difficult part, that having to relive those agonizing moments as he felt the presence of each and every family member leave him as they’d burned away, trying to push the words out through the phantom burn of smoke in his lungs, but it’s not. He’s had time to deal with that loss, not that it makes him ache any less to think about it, and that time made it just a tiny bit easier to speak their names again._

_As it turns out, his so-called “misplaced guilt” – over his family, Paige, Erica, Boyd, Jackson – had been the hardest to deal with. He’d lived with it for so long that the weight had eventually become another part of him, sinking in to his skin, weaving its way through muscle and tendon, knitting itself into the marrow of his bones, and letting go of something that had become such an integral part of who he was felt like pulling teeth. It took months to come to terms with the fact that while he could have done things differently, not everything was his fault._

_He makes it through, though, and feels lighter than he did when he started. With Rachel’s help and a lot of Kleenex, he makes it through the pack’s senior year, leaving his session to get to BHHS just in time to see Allison walk across the stage to get her diploma. He can’t help the swell of pride he feels for her, for all of them, because they survived supernatural creatures and crazy teenagers and lived long enough to graduate high school._

_As the ceremony ends and he weaves his way through the crowd, he decides it’s time to show them how proud he is._

\--

Which is, of course, where Derek’s story really begins.

\--

_He’d tried to argue for more time, that he wasn’t ready yet, that while he was better, he wasn’t at his best, but Rachel wasn’t having it. It’s the beginning of June, the summer before most of the pack leaves for college, and with one last parting glance she tells him to take the tools he’d gained in the last year and put them to use. She shoos him out of her office with her phone number and explicit instructions to make things right with the pack._

_He starts with Isaac, first by apologizing for being a shitty alpha and an even worse friend during the alpha pack’s stay. Isaac is still staying with the McCalls, which, Derek admits, is probably for the best, but they’ve seen each other at meetings and on days where Isaac just wants to be near. Isaac is quick to forgive, which bothers Derek to no end, but Isaac is quick to inform him that forgiving him and trusting him are two very different things. It hurts, hearing that Isaac doesn’t trust him, but he’s not wrong to feel that way, and Derek is determined to work to get it back._

_He takes Isaac to his first professional baseball game, and they spend the day in the sun eating ballpark hot dogs and laughing. Isaac mentions his dad in passing, so quiet that Derek nearly misses say that his dad used to bring him out here when he was a kid, before his older brother died and all his dad did was drink and blame him for everything. Isaac doesn’t seem quite as sad as he used to, the stench of regret and fear slowly fading into the near nothingness of resignation. Derek wants to say something, to offer comfort in one of the few ways he knows how, but then someone hits a home run and they’re surrounded by cheering fans and spilled beer, and Isaac is happy again. There’s an easy camaraderie there that wasn’t there before, probably ever, and Derek feels something inside him shift into place._

_He takes the confidence he gained from his success with Isaac and moves on to Jackson, who has recently moved back to California for college. He’s not nearly as receptive to the idea of patching things up as Isaac was, ignoring Derek’s phone calls for weeks leading up to his arrival in Beacon Hills, but Derek catches him at the end of his first pack meeting back and just asks him to listen. He apologizes, for a lot of things, but mostly for giving him the Bite without telling him everything he’d need to know, for abandoning him when he so clearly just wanted someone to care, and for walking away when Jackson clearly needed help that day in the locker room._

_Jackson nods and walks away. He hasn’t accepted Derek’s apology, probably won’t for a very long time, if ever, but Derek can sense that Jackson feels less angry as he leaves the loft. It’s progress, which is more than he expected, and he can be patient, wait for Jackson to come to him when he’s ready._

_Two weeks later, Jackson seeks him out. They spend a lot of time walking in the woods, letting Jackson talk out his anger instead of taking it out on other people. Sometimes they run, if Jackson’s feeling particularly aggressive that day, sometimes they sit out by the lake in silence. It’s an unlikely bond they forge, but it’s there, and Derek can feel his tie to Jackson strengthening with every passing day. He’s still Jackson around the group, the seemingly heartless douchebag, but he’s a little softer around the edges now. Even Lydia seems less worried. He’ll consider it a small victory._

\--

Natural progression _should_ have had him visiting Erica and Boyd, but he couldn’t make himself do it, not at that point. Despite having held Erica’s lifeless body that night in the bank, having been used as a weapon to kill Boyd, the act of going to the cemetery and staring at their graves had terrified him. 

Even now, driving down the nearly empty interstate, he finds himself rubbing the center of his chest as he thinks about them, as if that simple act could force his ties to them, once thrumming and bright beneath his skin, to come back to life. To this day he is always left feeling just a little bit empty, knowing that that void will never be filled.

He’d gone to Scott and Allison next.

\--

_Scott and Allison are a little more difficult. He’s not expecting much, knows that neither of them particularly like him, that Scott only tolerates him because Stiles, for whatever reason, refuses to stay away, and with Scott comes Allison, who has warmed up to him enough to the point where their relationship could be considered slightly above frigid. They trust him even less, but he’s hoping for a tentative truce between them, if nothing else._

_Allison doesn’t hold anything against him anymore, knows that Scott turning wasn’t his fault, that her mom went too far, but politely informs him that it’ll be some time before she can be around him and not immediately feel enraged. He nods; he gets that feeling all too well. Every once in a while she’ll say something, sometimes the most mundane thing, that reminds him so much of Kate that it nearly steals the breath from his lungs and it’s days before he can look her in the eye again. Like everything else about this process, it’ll take time, and he hopes that they can get there._

_Scott is still adamant that he’s not pack, and as much as Derek wants to argue to the contrary, he doesn’t. As a true alpha, he’s in no danger of becoming an omega, and he never wanted this for himself to begin with. Derek gets that, he does – the Bite is a gift, but only when given to someone who not only wants it, but understands what it means. It’s a family of choice, the knowledge that someone would always have your back, the opportunity to be something extraordinary. Scott had two out of three before he’d been turned – his true alpha instincts would have led him to do great things as a human eventually._

_Most importantly, as he constantly feels the need to reiterate, he doesn’t trust Derek. Derek could easily throw all the reasons why he shouldn’t trust Scott out on the table – most notably the time he used the promise of pack to get him to help with Gerard, only to force him to bite someone who intended to use it against them – but Derek’s not that person anymore. Scott didn’t want the Bite, so Derek isn’t going to force him to live with it._

_He leaves the McCall house with Tupperware full of lasagna (despite her son’s reservations, Melissa seems to like him just fine) and a promise from both Scott and Allison to come to him when or if they’re ever ready._

_He’ll take it._

\--

With time and quite a bit of distance, things between he and Scott had improved. Scott still doesn’t consider himself pack, at least not in the traditional sense, but he steps up when they need him, when Derek _asks_ , though the truce the Hale pack has with the Argents has left the territory mostly un-invaded for the last three years. More importantly, at least for Derek, Allison even lets him and Stiles watch their baby girl, Charlotte, when they need some time together away from her. 

He’s nearly halfway home when he gets lost in his thoughts again.

\--

_Stiles and Lydia are the easiest part of this entire process - they’ve been in and out of the loft more often than anyone else in the last year, creating a supernatural database of sorts from the research they gather and bestiaries Derek is able to obtain. He's talked to them separately, apologizes to Lydia for not believing her when the alpha pack had first come around, apologizes to Stiles for constantly threatening to kill him, for not trusting Stiles when he should have. They're not okay with it, at least not at first, but they both accepted a while ago that what's in the past can't be changed. All they can do is move forward. They’re the only ones who know about the therapy. For the first few weeks they'd been at the loft waiting for him to come home, on the off chance that he might need company just to avoid feeling alone. They're the only ones who know about how Peter fucking off to who knows where shortly after he’d started really affected him, how his standing weekly calls with Cora while she traveled weren’t quite enough, and they’re the easiest to be around. It evolves into a friendship that probably shouldn't work, but does. He’s grateful for their quiet support, even if it does mean he’s buying more groceries than he thought it would take to feed a couple humans._

_Stiles spends a lot of his time there making himself at home, eating Derek’s food and sleeping on his couch and making demands for things like cable and plates. Eventually Derek tells him to make a grocery list, find the cheapest cable provider, and buy his own damn plates if his napkins weren’t good enough. Lydia had laughed, loud and bright, and Derek smiled. It had been a while since he’d heard her laugh like she meant it, and it warmed something in him to think he’d had a part in making it happen._

_Stiles, however, looks like he’s swallowed a fly, and it makes Derek nervous._

_“What?”_

_“N-Nothing,” Stiles stutters. “You’re just… you’re smiling.”_

_He says it with such awe, like the idea of Derek genuinely smiling is a sign of the second coming, and Derek can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. “I do that sometimes,” he grumbles._

_“You should do it more often. Almost makes you look less scary.” Lydia reaches over, punches him in the arm. “Ow.”_

_“Uh, thanks?”_

_“No problem. I’m just gonna…” he gestures at the dusty old book in front of him. “Get back to this. Now.”_

_Derek smiles just to see him squirm in his chair. It brings him a certain amount of joy to see him so uncomfortable. He can see Stiles watching him out of the corner of his eye, hear his heartbeat begin to race, and Derek walks into the other room before he can let his mind get carried away with all the other ways he can get Stiles’ heart beating faster._

\--

Derek hadn’t been ready, then, to acknowledge what had been building between them that first year. It was scary, and new, and their friendship had been so tenuous before, Stiles’ relationship with Scott adding unnecessary strain after the alpha pack, that pursuing something with Stiles before he’d had time to figure out what the last year meant for him would end in nothing but heartbreak. So, as much as it pained him, he held back. They were Stiles and Derek. If it was going to happen, it would.

Which is sort of how he almost ruined things anyway.

\--

_The pack has one week left of summer before and college they’re resolute in their decision to spend every possible minute together, which is why they’re piled on Derek’s couch with Cora, who’s making a quick stop through Beacon Hills before heading out for the southern leg of her journey. It feels good to have her home, and watching her trade barbs with Jackson almost has him on the floor laughing. Lydia and Stiles are off in the corner, undoubtedly plotting to prevent Jackson and Cora from ever joining forces, and Scott and Allison are on the loveseat, whispering quietly to each other. Isaac is in the kitchen with Derek, helping him carry in the bowls of popcorn and chips and dips of varying flavors and levels of spice, along with soft drinks and bottled water._

_It was a perfectly normal evening, until it wasn’t._

_Derek grabs the last tray of food and makes his way to the living room. Isaac is blocking the way to the coffee table, so Derek is forced to walk behind the furniture until he gets to the other side of the room._

_That’s when he smells it._

_It’s so faint that he nearly misses it entirely, the sickly sweet floral scent of perfume hanging in the air, but it’s there, and suddenly Derek isn’t in his living room anymore. He’s in a pay-by-the-hour motel room on the outskirts of town, tangled in sheets that smell like sex and sweat and other people, a finger drawing incoherent shapes across his abs. He’s loved, here, feels safe wrapped up in her laugh, in her body, tells her as much as he cards his fingers through long, silky hair. She loves him, too, he can feel it in his bones._

_Derek’s running, out the door before he realizes it, down the stairs and through the parking lot to his car, backing it out with the squeal of tires and a sharp turn of the steering wheel. He needs to get away, as far away as possible as fast as he can, and he doesn’t look back._

_It’s instinct that has him parking on the side of the road in front of the Stilinski home, muscle memory forcing him out of the car, across the lawn, right up to the front door. He’s beginning to settle, now that he’s in a place he knows is safe, where Kate has never been, but the panic is still bubbling under the surface. He feels the shift in the air as the door opens, and he feels his body sag against the side of the house when the Sheriff comes in to view._

_The Sheriff welcomes him in with a nod of his head, clapping a hand on his shoulder as he stumbles over the threshold and into the living room. He drops himself on the couch, doing his best to make himself feel as small as possible, only moving to reach out and accept the beer John is offering. He’s John now, has been for months, since the time he caught Derek speeding home after a particularly rough appointment with Rachel. He’d taken one look at Derek, his red-rimmed eyes standing out in stark contract to the pale tone of his skin, and instead of ticketing him, told him to drive carefully over to the Stilinski home, where they would sit, have a beer, and if they happened to strike up a conversation, so be it._

_He’d told John everything that night, all about Kate and Peter ad Laura, the words tumbling from his mouth before he could try to stop them. After that, he’d made a habit of coming to John when things got really bad. It’s instinct at this point, to seek out the only parental figure he’s had in years, the advice only someone with a child and life experience can give._

_“You look tired, kid.”_

Derek huffs. “It’s been an exhausting thirty minutes.”

_“What triggered it?” John’s used to Derek showing up after really nasty flashbacks, can recognize when he’s had one, but Derek hasn’t had one this bad in months._

_“Allison’s perfume. It’s the same kind…” John nods his understanding. “Because our senses are heightened, sense memory is worse for us. It just caught me off guard.”_

_“Same thing happened to me for years after Lily died. I washed all the blankets, moved all of her things in to the guest room, did anything I could to stop smelling her everywhere.” He takes a deep breath, exhales shakily, and Derek can feel the sadness coming from him as if it were his own. Time doesn’t make it less painful to remember, they can both attest to that. “One day, about three years after she’d passed, I was cleaning out the cabinets in the bathroom, and I was pulling a piece of gauze from the back of the shelf when something shattered on the floor. It was her perfume, and it smelled just like I remembered. Stiles had a panic attack when he came home from school that day.” He laughs, though it’s hollow “We used the downstairs bathroom until it aired out. It took forever.”_

_“It sucks.”_

_John nods, tipping his beer in agreement. “That it does.”_

_They sit there, silent but for the faint buzz of a Dodgers game on the TV. It always comes to this point, where they just sit and find comfort in the presence of a person who understands loss the likes of which some people are fortunate enough to never experience. Hours pass, the coffee table scattered with empty brown bottles. The game has been over for a while now, the commentary of the post-game show the only noise preventing the comfortable silence from sliding into awkward territory._

_The door opens then, or more accurately, it swings open, followed by the presence of one very tired, but no less frustrated for it, Stiles._

_“Really, you came here?”_

_“Stiles,” his dad warns._

_“No, seriously –“_

_“Stiles, enough.”_

_“But Dad!”_

_“No,” he grunts, standing from his spot in the recliner. “You, son, are going to shut up and listen. I’m going to bed. Any further resistance on the matter will result in the cable company ‘accidentally’ canceling our internet service and your allowance disappearing.”_

_Stiles glares for a long minute. “That’s dirty, dad. I expected better of you.”_

_“No, you didn’t,” he practically sings, patting his son on the shoulder as he brushes past him._

_“I should go,” Derek says, moving to grab his keys from the table._

_“You,” John says, pointing at him accusingly. “Remember that conversation we haven’t been having?” Derek nods. They’ve been dancing around the topic of Stiles since the time John caught them asleep on the couch a few months ago, curled around each other in the warm glow of the TV screen. He’d woken up to see John standing above them, Stiles asleep on Derek’s chest, possibly also drooling. He’d looked from Derek, to Stiles, back to Derek, then gave Derek a very pointed ‘I am watching you’ glare before walking away and up the stairs to his room. “Consider it had. Now do something about it. It won't be in front of you forever.”_

_Derek stands in the living room with his mouth hanging open, staring at John as he walks in to the kitchen. He can’t tell if he feels slightly betrayed by the Sheriff at the moment, or if he really even has the right to be surprised at how sneaky and perceptive the man is. Stiles, whose face has gone slightly red, seems to feel the same, with the added benefit of slight embarrassment. It’s not like Derek doesn’t know how Stiles feels, knows that Stiles is aware that he knows, and they’ve managed to make it this far with the barest hints of acknowledgement from time to time, but it’s completely different having your friend’s dad tell you to get a move on and make out already._

_“So–”_

_“Can we pretend that didn’t happen? At least…” Derek sighs. “At least for right now?”_

_“Derek –”_

_“Just for a little while?”_

_He’s pacing now, preparing himself for what, Derek doesn’t know, but he knows this Stiles, the one who is restless when he feels like he’s on the verge of losing control, the one whose hair is constantly in disarray from the number of times he cards his fingers through it when he’s frustrated. Derek doesn’t want to be the one who turns Stiles in to this, the person who feels like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders when his portion of the burden is exactly zero. “Derek, I get – I get that you’ve got issues, okay? A-And the fact that half the time, you don’t know how to use your words, and that’s_ fine _, I mean, it’s not, but it is, you know?” He moves in closely, then, so close that he can feel Stiles’ breath against his chin. “But I can’t do this forever.”_

 _“I know,” Derek whispers. He wants so badly to do this, to give Stiles everything he wants, everything_ Derek _wants too, but he knows that if he goes in to this feeling even the tiniest bit incomplete, it’ll fail. He won’t do that to Stiles, refuses to be the reason the light in his eyes dims even the slightest bit. He leans forward then, resting his forehead against Stiles’, relaxing in to the touch. “I just need a little more time.”_

_Stiles leans closer to Derek’s body, resting his cheek against his shoulder, and sighs. “Let me help you, Derek.”_

_“There’s nothing you can do, Stiles. It’s all me.”_

_“Seriously?” Stiles groans._

_“What?”_

“It’s not you, it’s me?”

_Derek chuckles. “Shut up.”_

_They stand there, arms wrapped around each other in the silence surrounding them, relaxed only in a way a person can be when in the comfort and security of their own home._

_“By the way, you’re on Scott’s shit list again.”_

_Derek snorts. “You say that like I’ve ever been off it.”_

_“Fair point.”_

_And just like that, things are normal again._

\--

They’d carried on like normal until Stiles and all the others left for college. Some had come home more often than others – Stiles every few weekends, Allison and Scott coming home once a month to spend a weekend with each other, and Lydia and Jackson, who had set out for the East Coast, had come home over holidays and breaks. It had been nice, constantly having one or more members of the pack swing by the loft to spend time with him and Isaac whenever they were home. Things were good, for all of them, and it was taking some getting used to.

Every time Stiles had come home they tried to set aside some time time for just the two of them. He hadn’t felt any regret over not giving in that night, knew his reasons for not giving them both exactly what they had wanted had been valid, not just excuses to protect himself from getting hurt. He hadn’t needed excuses; Stiles would never hurt him on purpose. He’d been hell bent on doing the right thing this time, doing it the right way, building on the solid foundation they’d cultivated over the previous year, building it to last.

Four years later, he still has it, even if the day they finally got together was just this side of really fucked up.

\--

_It’s Halloween, and it only seems fitting that he face the last of his personal demons by visiting Erica and Boyd._

_Truth be told, it’s not actually why he chose today of all days; he could have gone any time, had felt ready for a while now, but Isaac had mentioned that Erica had loved Halloween, despite not being able to take part in it as a kid because of her epilepsy. The first (and only, and isn’t that a kick in the balls) Halloween she’d been able to participate in, she’d gone to a party with the most strobe lights, wolfed out, and danced until she felt like she’d collapse. He heard Isaac telling Lydia that it was Erica’s way of taking back her life, of taking advantage of the chance to live the one she should have been given, free of hospitals and doctors and pills. She was proud of who she was, as a girl and a wolf._

_He wishes, more than anything, that he could have made her proud to claim him, too._

_He misses Boyd’s silent strength, his sharp mind, his dry-as-the-Sahara sense of humor. Derek wishes so badly that he’d appreciated what he’d had in Boyd a little more, had seen what a huge advantage he was for the pack, but Derek had been drunk on power and his choices hadn’t exactly been the best, he knows that now. And then there had been the kanima and Matt and Gerard and Peter and before he knew it, Erica and Boyd were gone, Jackson was dead and then not, Scott had double-crossed him, and Gerard was missing._

_He’s not making excuses for himself. These are the cold, hard facts, the truth. Derek made poorly thought-out, impulsive choices, biting teenagers who really had no true grasp on what it meant to be one of them, to be pack. Hell, he’d all but promised_ himself _to Erica to get her to say yes, brushing his hand up her leg, fingers flirting with the edge of her hospital gown, making promises he knew he couldn’t keep to a girl who was desperate to have control over her body. He’d promised Boyd family, companionship, people who knew his name. He’d become everything he hated about Kate, and they died. They had walked away, yes, but he hadn’t given them many reasons to stay._

_On the way to the cemetery, he thinks about all their lost potential, as individuals and as a pair. Erica and Boyd had become accustomed to being on their own as outcasts, for being quiet or sick, and as painful as it had been, they had held their own. Together, though, they came alive. Boyd learned the value of speaking up, and in turn, Erica learned that sometimes less was more._

_He parks, walks to where he knows Erica is buried, and tells her just that. He spends an hour there, sitting in the grass, the dew soaking through the thick denim of his jeans, talking to her head stone until he’s hoarse. When he finally does walk away, he swears he can hear her laughter in the wind, carrying behind it the berry scent of her perfume. It almost feels like forgiveness._

_His time with Boyd is harder. Derek had promised him so much only to let him down at every turn. When he finally did get the chance to make things right, Boyd was silent again, mourning the loss of his best friend and maybe partner, and Derek deserved his silence. He’d stepped back, hoping that in time Boyd would come to him, and in the meantime helped Cora acclimate to normal life._

_It still eats at Derek that the most Boyd had ever said to him had been while he was dying in Derek’s arms._

_He tells Boyd about the nightmares, how he wakes up in the middle of the night with the phantom beat of Boyd’s slowing heart still thumping against his fingertips, the scent of death and fear heavy in his nose, the coppery tang of blood in the back of his throat. He tells Boyd that he should have tried harder to reach out, to let Boyd know that he was there even if Boyd didn’t want him to be, that the pack would always be there. What was left of it, that is._

_He talks until he can’t anymore, to the point where his voice is nothing but a harsh whisper and he’s got nothing left to say. The cool October breeze cuts right through his light jacket, and he’s just about to pick himself up and head home when a familiar hand settles itself on his left shoulder in a gesture so achingly familiar that Derek’s crying before he can stop it._

_Stiles is quick to act, settling himself down behind Derek, who is now bracketed by long legs, the heat of Stiles’ chest radiating through his shirt and into Derek’s back. He feels the gentle vibrations of Stiles’ voice as he tries to calm him down, murmuring meaningless platitudes in an effort to just get him to breathe. At some point, Derek isn’t sure when, the tears stop. His throat is raw and sore, but the warm puffs of breath on his neck from the body behind him go a long way in soothing that ache._

_“Why are you here?” he whispers._

_Stiles reaches out and grabs Derek’s hand, threading their fingers together against Derek’s chest. “Didn’t want you to be alone.”_

_Derek’s response is right on the tip of his tongue, but he’s not sure if right now, sitting in front of their dead friend’s grave, is the most appropriate time. They’ve been dancing around this thing, more so in the last few months, and he’s so tired of pushing away the things that make him happy. He knows Stiles is that thing._

_“How long are you planning on staying?”_

_“For, like, this visit? Well, I have the weekend, and Thanksgiving is in a few weeks, so–”_

_Derek huffs. “Not what I was talking about, Stiles.”_

_“Oh.” He can feel the exact moment Stiles catches on, can hear the stutter in his heartbeat, the sharp intake of breath against his ear. “Oh.”_

_Silence descends upon them, stretching out for long minutes as the sun begins to set. The chill he’d felt earlier has developed into a state of genuine cold, but he’ll sit here all night if he has to, just to hear Stiles’ answer._

_“Stiles?”_

_“How about a trial run? Say, the next fifty years or so?”_

Derek snorts, though it comes out more like a wheeze. “If that’s your idea of a trial run, I’d hate to see what your idea of commitment looks like.”

_Stiles laughs, loud and bright, and Derek relaxes into the embrace. There are goosebumps breaking out across his skin even though he feels warmed to the core, grinning as he stares at the pink and orange sky as it slowly gives way to shades of blue and purple as the sun sets on the horizon. It’s so delightfully cliché that Derek can’t help but laugh with Stiles, will laugh with him forever if he has any say in the matter._

_Eventually they do get up; Stiles starts shaking after about 30 minutes of sitting on the damp grass, muttering something about werewolf heat being useless if you’re not being cuddled by one, and Derek just grabs him by the hand and pulls him up, adjusting his grip so that they can walk hand-in-hand as they begin the long journey back to the parking lot._

_He feels less empty than he has in a long time._

\--

It’s not often that he lets himself take this long trip down memory lane, but he’s had a lot of time over the last week to think about the current state of his life. If someone had asked him, after the fire, if he could ever see himself being happy again, he’d probably have told them that he didn’t even deserve to think about it. He’d been lost and heartbroken and depressed, withdrawing to the point where he eventually just shut down completely.

Losing Laura and coming back to Beacon Hills had been both a blessing and a curse. Mostly a curse, at least for a while. Burying a family member, being accused of murdering said family member, facing your crazy ex-girlfriend, discovering your comatose uncle killed your sister, then killing said uncle with your bare hands, aren’t things that usually help a person sleep at night. The ensuing months had been even worse, a possibility Derek hadn’t even considered. The kanima and Matt, the alpha pack and Jennifer, Erica and Boyd, it had all been so much worse than Derek had ever imagined. When he remembers that seven year stretch of his life, it had seemed so unlikely, against the laws of the universe, really, that Derek could possibly be as happy as he is now, but it happened. 

And now he’s here, finally getting off the interstate just fifteen minutes from a small two-story house he shares with his partner and their German Shepard, Sophie. He’s dying to get home and crawl in bed with Stiles, who has, Derek’s almost certain, been letting Sophie sleep in their bed while he’s been gone. Derek doesn’t care; it’ll still smell like home when he buries his head in his pillow and passes out until mid-afternoon, curled up against Stiles’ back.

As he passes the old wooden sign that proudly proclaims that he’s back in Beacon Hills, he’s still not sure, even after all this time, that he’s not about to wake up and find that it’s all been some wonderful dream.

\--

_Stiles goes back to school two days after their visit to the cemetery._

_Derek starts writing his first short story a week later._

_It’s nothing much, really; it’s basic at its best, but he feels good when he’s finished, feels accomplished in a way that he hasn’t in years, and it’s addicting. He’d written short stories as a teen, had loved losing himself in fictional worlds of mystery and intrigue, even of old school romance, and had found a sense of peace in it. He’s honest on paper in ways he’s incapable of expressing on a verbal level. He’d forgotten how good it feels to put a pen to paper and with the intention of losing himself in a world not his own, and it keeps going after that first one is finished. The words just keep coming, brain to fingers to keys, stories of love and loss, of betrayal, of the fall from grace and the struggle for redemption. By the time Stiles comes home for Thanksgiving, he has three completed stories and a fourth in the works._

_Stiles is sitting at Derek’s kitchen table, head buried in a book about god knows what, when Derek drops the hard copies of his finished works in front of him. Stiles jumps in his seat, nearly knocking his coffee mug off the table, flailing in an effort to right himself before the chair can topple over. Derek snorts inelegantly, kisses Stiles’ temple, and tells him not to stay up too late because they have to be at the Sheriff’s by 10 to start cooking._

_He’s a nervous wreck as he sits in bed, waiting to hear Stiles’ opinion. It’s been an hour now, and he’s fluffed the pillows twice and re-made the bed, and he’s expecting Stiles to come in and try to let him down as gently as possible, because Stiles would never outright tell him it sucks. But Derek has reconnected with something that’s his that brings him so much joy, and he just wants to be good at it._

_What he’s not expecting is Stiles tackling him into his pillows, mouth moving a mile a minute as Derek tries his absolute best to keep up. Stiles tells him that Lydia knows somebody who works for somebody in publishing and he could pass it on if Derek wanted. He grumbles something that must sound like agreement because a week later he gets a call from a small publishing house that’s interested in printing his stuff. They agree to the pen name easily enough, but the negotiations regarding any potential press drag the process out nearly a month before Derek actually signs his contract._

_Over the next two years, as Stiles and their pack study through their freshman and sophomore years, D.A. Walker gains a small but no less devoted following, his fourth set of short stories actually making an appearance at the very bottom of a best-seller list. Because he has enough money from the life insurance policies to live comfortably for the foreseeable future, Derek buys a house with the money he’s put away from book sales, a fixer-upper across town that Stiles had instantly fallen for as they were driving to the store a week before his junior year. He spends his time writing and doing home improvement while Stiles is two hours away, nose buried in dusty books in the back of the library. He saves their room for last. It feels wrong to paint and decorate without Stiles, the only reason he bought this house, there. It’s only April, so Derek spends the remaining six weeks of the school year working on his next book._

_That summer is spent getting more paint on each other than on the walls, Stiles nearly cutting his thumb off with the circular saw because he’s too busy watching the lines of sweat traveling down the naked skin of Derek’s back, and Derek putting holes in the walls faster than he can fix them as a result of Stiles’ poorly timed innuendos about carpentry. It gets done, though, and Derek spends the remainder of the summer in bed with Stiles, making plans with the pack, and going over page proofs for his most recent work. When it gets published, it’s met with the same level of appreciation as any of his other books, but with the added bonus of fans suggesting he attempt a full-length novel. Stiles tells him he should, but Derek doesn’t know what else he has left to say._

_Before he knows it, August is halfway over and Stiles is leaving for his senior year. It’s the last time Derek will have to watch Stiles drive back there, the last time he'll send him off with the promise of marathon sex and the chance to read the manuscript he’s tinkering with as incentive to stay alive until he can come home for Thanksgiving. It’s also the last time Derek will have to help Stiles move his stuff from the Stilinski home and pack it in to the Jeep, because come Spring, Stiles will be bringing his mess to Derek’s house (theirs, really, though Stiles has insisted on living with his dad until graduation) for an indefinite stay._

_This time Derek smiles as he watches him drive away, because he knows it’s only just the start._

\--

As much as he’d prefer to remember it differently, their time spent apart hadn’t always been rainbows and sunshine. They fought, just like any other couple, maybe sometimes worse when he considered the constant danger they’d been in at first. Derek still had days where he struggled to use his words, almost always when Stiles needed them from him most, and Stiles would forget little things like picking up milk on his way over or not calling when he’d made it to his dorm after a late night drive back to school. There had been one fight in particular, the worst one of their relationship, where Derek had been attacked by an omega lurking through the preserve. The pack had gotten so caught up in catching the intruder that no one had called Stiles. By the time everything was over and Derek had the chance to call him, he’d discovered that Melissa already had.

Stiles hadn’t spoken to him for a week.

But, against all odds, and the very laws that seem to dictate Derek’s life, they made it through those four years.

\--

_Derek starts writing what he feels will be his final book two weeks after Stiles leaves._

_He writes the only story he feels he has left to tell: one of a brother and sister against the world. It’s difficult, remembering how he’d felt at sixteen, carrying around so much guilt and sadness, but writing this book seems to be doing more good than not. It’s cathartic, in a way, getting all of these unspoken thoughts out, putting them in perspective so that others will understand. Most importantly, he writes it with the intention of remembering Laura for being the wonderful person she’d been, both before and after the fire. A part of him had wanted to rewrite the story, say that their return to Beacon Hills had been a healing experience, that Laura had come back for him in New York, and giving them the life they should have had, but it doesn’t feel right. It felt dishonest to be so emotionally invested in his words to write something he’d never felt. He writes about the loss, the difficulty of getting out of bed in the morning when he had no one there to greet him. He tells the world about the mistakes he made out of grief, his search for revenge, the ultimate realization that getting it didn’t make him feel better. It has a hopeful, if somber, ending, and he cries when it’s done. It feels like setting the record straight, even though no one will know just how true it is. It feels like absolution._

_The truth is out there now. When he gets responses from his editor, talking about various literary prizes and how this book will really put him on the map, he laughs so hard he cries; for a guy who, despite all his effort, still can’t articulate his feelings, he sure has a lot of words at his disposal._

_He dedicates it to Laura and Stiles._

_By the time Spring rolls around he’s sending off final page proofs to his editor and road tripping with the pack to see Stiles graduate. Lydia and Jackson, who are out East for another week, can’t be there, but he and Stiles plan to fly out and surprise them in a few days, after they get Stiles moved in to their house. He watches Stiles walk across that stage to accept his diploma, the words “summa cum laude” ringing out across the crowd, and smiles and hollers, stealing a glance at John who looks like he’s struggling to hold back tears, the pride rolling off of him in waves. Derek wonders how he’ll ever reconcile how this smart, sarcastic human being is also the same person who’d told him that Derek was “not his Sugar Daddy and that he could take care of his own damn self” when they finally settled on living arrangements. He’s so proud of who Stiles has become, all of them are, so excited for all of the things Stiles will do with his life, and lucky that he gets to be the one to share that journey with him._

_If that enthusiasm is how he’s nearly blinded by the corner of Stiles’ cap when he goes in for a hug, well, he can’t muster the energy to feel embarrassed about it._

_They spend the summer learning to be around each other 24/7. It’s rough at first. Derek had forgotten how messy Stiles can be when he has too much going on in his head with no thought to spare for laundry, and Stiles keeps forgetting that Derek’s not an early riser, that blaring 90s pop in the shower at 7am is not a good way to introduce Derek to the wonders of the Spice Girls. It takes a while, but they get there – Stiles stops leaving his dirty towels on the bathroom floor and Derek grows accustomed to hearing “Wannabe” first thing in the morning with minimal grumping. Derek will make Stiles toast and coffee in the mornings, knowing he’ll run out the door with toast between his teeth and exit with a muffled “love you” before peeling out of their driveway. May bleeds into June, June gives way to July, and August is once again upon them._

_Derek will sit in the kitchen some days wondering how he’s reached this point in his life. After all he’s been through, all he’s lost and gained over the years, all the problems the pack has faced together when they weren’t struggling with each other, he never thought he’d get here, whole and content in a way he hasn’t felt since before the fire. Today is one of those days, and like any other time Derek gets lots in thoughts of what could have been, Stiles will come up behind him, strong hands massaging the knots in his shoulders until Derek relaxes into his touch, will lean down and kiss Derek’s forehead so softly he almost never feels it. He’ll tell Derek that it’s late, that they should probably call it a night, will guide Derek to their room where Stiles will strip them both down to their boxers, tuck them both under the covers, and curl himself around Derek until Derek comes back to him._

_That night, he gets a call from his editor._

_The book goes number one._

\--

Derek’s turning on to their street now, can see their house just a few hundred feet away, and Derek is practically vibrating with the need to be inside those four walls. He feels the tug of home, of Stiles, in his chest, and if his foot pushes on the gas pedal a little more than is necessary in a residential area, well, no one is awake to see it.

He parks the car next to the jeep that has miraculously survived six years of Stiles behind its wheel, unfolding himself from the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind him. He can hear Sophie’s nails scratching the hardwood floor in front of the door as he unlocks it, and is met with her face the second he sneaks his way inside. He crouches down, scratching her behind her ears, letting her lick his face for a few minutes before he quietly guides her to the sliding back door, where he lets her out to do her morning business. 

It only takes a few short steps before he’s leaning over the couch, or, more accurately, leaning over Stiles, who is wrapped up in the blankets from their bed, skin pink and sleep warm as he sleeps, hair sticking out at all angles and, judging by the patch of black leather peeking out from beneath the sheets, his old leather jacket. Stiles, ever since Derek’s first trip for his book, has made a point of sleeping on the couch the night before Derek is due home so that Stiles is the first thing he sees when he comes through the door. It’s cheesy, Stiles has said so himself, many times, but Derek enjoys the fact that he doesn’t have to go walking through their house before stripping down and climbing in beside him. It’s cramped, but Derek likes it that way, the close proximity a welcome change from the long trip apart. 

Stiles sighs sleepily, snuggling in to Derek’s chest. “Hi, babe.”

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Mmm,” Stiles groans. “Why’m I up?”

“Why are you wearing my jacket?”

“Cause I was cold,” he mutters. “It’s cold sleeping without you. Missed you.”

Derek smiles, kisses the top of Stiles’ head. “Missed you, too.” It’s only a matter of seconds before Stiles’ heartbeat evens out once again, body going limp in Derek’s arms as he falls back to sleep.

It’s here, tangled together on the old couch in their living room, Stiles half asleep on his chest and Sophie barking in the back yard, that Derek feels prepared for whatever’s coming next.

He wiggles down into Stiles’ embrace, and with Stiles' hair tickling his nose, he falls asleep wondering how his life could possibly get better than this.


End file.
